I debated about saying much of anything about the events in the US but after seeing all the bad takes might as well have mine. Couple points of background about me: I have not lived in the United States for 11 years. In some ways, the US seems like a foreign country. 1/n

Second, I have lived most of my adult life in multi-ethnic environments, 11 years in Asia and before that 7 years in LA in a Hispanic/Asian neighborhood. I have not however lived, worked, or had many African-American friends. Just background. So with that....my thoughts: 2/n

First, I have lived most of my adult life effectively as the minority. I don't say that to ask for sympathy at all (white privilege in a minute) but to say, living as a minority even as a white one gives you a better sense of the complaints you hear from 3/n

the African American community. I haven't lived their experience but I have a better idea of what they are talking about. It makes more sense. I've now been on the receiving end of similar experiences. I think it would help everyone trying to make a multicultural society 4/n

work to live as a mathematical minority. Second, yes, white privilege and white male privilege but it also has a similar set of downsides that minorities reference. Whether it is how people treat you making assumptions before they've talked to you or being the token 5/n

white guy in Asia. My favorite was one time appearing on an all Chinese panel about the Chinese economy and after we are done Chinese guy walks up and says, "wow, you actually know China." "Not just a pretty face my friend. When meeting people in Asia, I quickly learned that 6/n

Ethnicity provided zero useful information about someone. Indians were ethnically Indian but raised all over the world. White people who had lived their whole life in Hong Kong and Chinese from Malaysia or Singapore who had never been to China and spoke a variety of 19th 7/n

century Chinese that would be unrecognizeable for the most part in modern China. I began asking people where are you from so I could better know the person I was talking to. One person I asked this to quizzically responded they were Indian looking at me like I was an idiot 8/n

I said, no where are you from. Where did you grow up? Go to school. Tell me about yourself. They then understood but it also indicated how strong our ethnic identification is even in non-ethnic type settings or questions. We get so used to that, it's hard to disentangle 9/n

Turning more directly to the US, I have a grab bag of thoughts with potentially less coherence and more randomness. First, as a moderate libertarian I am always concerned about excessive government power or control in any form. I do not see how anyone can look at 10/n

The military hardware and police behavior we are seeing tape of and think this is a good thing. In a best case scenario, it seems that there are better ways to manage the situations they are facing than examples we are seeing. The militarization of police need to be 11/n

re-examined with training and methods as well. Second, all of the convenient narratives are shot to hell with these events. President Trump does not control local policing, hardware, and methods. Democratic mayors in heavily Democratic states and cities are bearing the 12/n

Primary brunt of the protests and violence. Many of these police forces have significant amount of minorities. There are significant underlying problems without question, but the simplistic partisan narrative simply does not hold water. Third, for the past 11 years I have 13/n

watched America get angrier and angrier. Let me lay it out: both parties, both sides are too blame. Period. At this moment, I am not interested in apportioning in some percentage, both sides share enormous blame in fanning the flames of anger. The narratives are absurd. 14/n

Let me make this clear: Democracy is not dying in America. Presidents do not lose court cases in non-democracies. Opposition parties do not win control of legislative bodies in no-democracies. Whatever you thought of Obama and whatever you think of Trump, you are doing 15/n

Nothing but fanning the flames of anger by screeching about this. You know what? All of this has happened before. Part of a democracy is realizing you are not always going to get your way but rather than accepting that people shriek about their opponent. You win some 16/n

and you lose some. That's the entire concept of democracy. Now every issue is make or break and turns into pure hatred and contempt for anyone who disagrees with you. That's a bigger threat. Third, what America really needs is a lot more understanding for all people 17/n

Racially, politically, less binary. I am encouraged that this weekend, we have seen some great examples of regular citizens, police and leaders saying how can we de-escalate this situation and reach across rather than escalate. Police chiefs taking a knee or talking 18/n

with protestors. And don't anyone say "my side did this and was awesome" there are examples of your side being bad and examples of them being good just like everyone elses. I remember this line from the old Hollywood musical. A poor villager tells the farmer Tevye 19/n

"We should defend ourselves! An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth!" He wisely responds: "Very good. That way the world will be blind and toothless." America is seen as the light not because we are perfect by any means but because our faults are there for all to see 20/n

And we seek to address them. Despite the racist hell hole sold by agenda promoting partisan hacks, the US remains the largest absolute yearly recipient of immigrants and one of the largest in relative terms among major countries. We remain the dream of those seeking a 21/n

Better life around the world. America was founded not on blood but on an ideal and that ideal is never realized. We work it out everyday. American history is littered with these events and we need to learn and improve but this is not the end of the American dream the beginning.